Adolescent obesity and bariatric surgery

The treatment of morbid obesity in adolescence should be based on aggressive behavioral and dietary modification. For adolescents with severe morbid obesity who have failed attempts at weight loss, the options are medical therapy or bariatric surgery. Medical therapy is occasionally effective in some patients and should be considered. Bariatric surgery is currently the most effective method of weight loss for morbid obesity. Current indications for bariatric surgery in adolescence are more conservative than for adults, because the long-term consequences of this surgery in growing children are not known. Because the long-term outcomes of bariatric surgery in adolescents are not known, it is ethically and clinically important that these patients be enrolled, whenever possible, in long-term prospective outcome studies.